


Mission Possible

by SpaceWaffleHouseTM



Series: Movie AUs [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A plethora of spy movie tropes, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Author tried to write a one shot and failed, Banter, F/M, Jokes about Russia in winter, Mission Impossible inspired, Slight description of a gunshot wound, The Phantom of the Opera is QUAKING about this chandelier, and maybe inspired by Get Smart TBH, not too graphic though, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-17 23:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16983546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWaffleHouseTM/pseuds/SpaceWaffleHouseTM
Summary: Ben Solo, CIA Agent and all around "bad ass" gets an assignment that really should have been a breeze, but a scavenger, a general, a commander, and a trooper ensure it will be anything but easy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reinasolo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reinasolo/gifts).



> Well... this was supposed to be a one shot, but I figured you might appreciate it if I broke it up a little even if it's not the longest fic in the world. This was actually a decent bit of fun, even if I know NOTHING about secret agents. I like branching out, so here's to hoping it worked.

Ben had never been in this much pain. Normally in this case, he would compare whatever he was feeling to a that of a gunshot, but he wasn’t sure exactly how well that comparison worked when the cause of his pain was indeed a literal gunshot. Red blossomed out from the wound on his abdomen as he limped away from his now dead assailant. A voice in his ears called out his name desperately, echoing in his brain as his vision blurred around him. 

There was one streetlight at the end of the street, but it looked like there were about five of them dancing in and out of his vision like  _ Pink Elephants on Parade _ , except with twinkling lights instead of a bunch of terrifying, animated elephants. Ben groaned as he collapsed against the wall, his hands clutching his middle like it would stop the blood from pouring out of him. The voice in his ears kept calling out to him as he continued limping on down the street, grunting painfully as he made his way down it, wanting to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. That was the first thing he’d been taught in training. 

Don’t ever. Ever.  _ Ever.  _ Get caught. And if you do, well… They gave them all little cyanide packets for a reason. Spilling their guts was worse than death. 

But it would seem like Ben was headed for that anyway as he tripped on a cobblestone, and fell down onto the street, crying out as the voice that was in his head—the woman on the coms, Rey, her name was Rey, and they were partners, weren’t they?—frantically warned him that she was coming. She was on her way to him, and he was going to be fine. “Ben, hold on,” her voice echoed in his head. “Just hold on.”

He wasn’t so sure how well he’d manage that, but he gave a nod to the empty street as if she could see him, finding that he was too weak to use his voice. A vague thought entered his head that he shouldn’t be lying on his stomach, since the bullet had entered through his front, and he used the last of his strength to roll over onto his back as dark spots began to freckle his vision. This was it, wasn’t it? The moment he died?

“Hold on, Ben,” the voice said, and he had no clue whether or not he succeeded as he succumbed to the grip of unconsciousness.

**_Approximately Two Weeks Earlier…_ **

Phasma was a woman nobody wanted to fuck with. She was taller than Ben by a couple of inches, and she was quite possibly actually made of steel instead of muscle beneath those clothes. He wouldn’t put it past her. Still, when she handed people assignments, they listened to them and didn’t complain, lest they face the wrath of the entire government of the United States. She was in charge of, well, everything. She wasn’t exactly a department head, by any means, she simply walked like she had more between her legs than any other man working under the government’s thumb. 

There was one thing she was certainly in charge of, though, and that was pairing people up for assignments. Whenever he wound up in the field and he wasn’t doing solo work, it was because he’d been assigned something by her. Well, more like he’d been assigned  _ someone.  _

On this day in particular, he’d been given an assignment with a group of four agents, two Americans, two British, and from the looks of things, he was about to get to know these strangers spectacularly well. They were going to be together for eight weeks in Moscow, and he did not know any of them. 

“Your flight departs at eighteen hundred hours tomorrow night,” Phasma told him, buttoning the single button on the front of an expensively tailored grey business suit. “Your fellow operatives will be flying into DC tonight, you’ll meet them at the airport gate tomorrow.”

Ben gave her a firm nod, then he stood up. “And my identity?”

“Your papers are awaiting you in Dopheld’s office on the third floor.  Interesting name they picked for you this time, Solo.”

Ben chuckled. “Can’t be worse than the last one.”

“It’s not bad, it’s just… intriguing to say the least.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Have you ever heard a name like Kylo Ren?”

Ben blinked at her, staring as if she’d just dribbled on herself. “What?” he asked in disbelief.

“That’s the name they’ve picked for you this time. But they’d prefer you address one another by rank over your coms, and so would I. The usual protocol.”

“What’s the rank, then?”

“Yours will be Supreme Leader.”

He nodded slowly, then he looked back at her again. “Kylo Ren, huh?”

“That’s what it says.”

He shrugged, it was only the second weirdest name he’d been granted. The first was something that made Kylo Ren seem tame by comparison. A part of him was concerned that the name would make him stick out like a sore thumb, but he still took the assignment with grace and headed down to the third floor office to pick up his things. 

**_Twenty Seven Hours Later_ **

Ben knew what the other people on his assignment looked like. He’d been given a file so he could convene with them at the earliest given opportunity, which certainly didn’t appear to be at the terminal gate where their plane would be taking off in just twenty short minutes. He bounced his knee casually on the plain, blue seat he was slouching in, scanning the crowd of people who would also be boarding the plane for signs of recognition. 

The first one he recognized was the man who went by the alias of Commander. He was a handsome guy in his mid to late thirties with dark hair, and the barest hints of gray speckled throughout. Like Ben he was wearing a business suit, since they were all flying out to Moscow under the guise of attending a conference for some company he hadn’t memorized the name of. His was navy though compared to Ben’s black. 

There was an awful lot of black in Ben’s wardrobe this time around, actually. Damn near everything in his suitcase—the company suitcase to be precise— was black, from his jeans to his t-shirts to his boxers and so forth. The only non-black item he’d managed to pack away had been the white undershirt for the tuxedo they’d slipped in. Apparently he’d be needing formal wear, which usually meant he’d be forced to attend a high class party.  _ Great.  _ There was nothing Ben hated more than partying with billionaires. 

It occurred to him that the other three gentlemen were likely also fully equipped with such suits as this. Perhaps they’d be able to commiserate. Ben wasn’t the biggest people person, but he liked to think he generally got along with his coworkers most of the time. Still there was no telling how it would be with these agents. He’d never met them before. 

He recognized the ginger man, alias general Brendol Smith—wow, the CIA was really running out of ideas, wasn’t it— next by the way his green eyes pierced out from behind a newspaper he was pretending to read. The two men looked at one another, then briefly nodded in a silent acknowledgment of who the other man was before they looked away. At least, the agent did. As for Ben, he continued to inspect the weasel looking man for another moment, taking in his also darkly colored suit and how it fell a little bit loosely on his smaller frame. Instantly something hit him as he looked at this stranger, though he couldn’t be sure what it was aside from the fact that it felt vaguely like deja vu. 

His eyes continued to scan the people around him until they landed on the woman—alias Daisy Niima, team medic and apparently overall genius if the IQ listed in her file was anything to go by— with admittedly rather beautiful hazel eyes and wavy brown hair that swept just past her shoulders, ghosting over the collar of her blazer as she nursed a Starbucks latte that had her closing her eyes in contentment. She was dressed in gray, her legs crossed beneath the tight pencil skirt she wore as her free hand supported her phone in her lap. He couldn’t be sure if it was her work phone or her personal phone, but then he quickly remembered that personal phones were always to be left behind on missions such as theirs. This was her work phone, a used iPhone from a couple generations back that he had the number to and could probably text her immediately if he chose to. She looked up briefly, locking eyes with him the same way he’d locked eyes with the ginger moments earlier. A soft blush crept up her cheeks, then they both smiled as they looked away, cutting off the moment before it could start. 

Ben searched the room for the last of his coworkers, spotting the man with the alias John Butler standing over by the window nursing a latte of his own. The man’s back was to him, but as he caught him in profile for a split second, he knew instantly that it was him. He was wearing the same pair of aviators he’d worn in his file picture—a bold and stupid move for sure, but those were some wicked looking sunglasses— and he’d recognize those anywhere. 

An announcement came over the loudspeakers then announcing first class boarding. Ben stood up, and grabbed the suitcase before rolling it up to the desk to join the lines of fliers. He handed them the ticket Phasma had printed out, it was scanned, and he was allowed to board the plane.  _ Kylo Ren, seat 4B.  _

Ben headed down the aisle of the plane a minute later, reaching up to open the overhead compartment before he shoved his enormous black suitcase within its confines. Whoever sat next to him was going to have a hell of a time figuring out how to get their shit in there as well, but they could take out their complains with the CIA if they wanted to say something about it. 

Once the suitcase was up, Ben flipped himself down into the window seat, and stared expectantly at the seat next to him for a second before he turned his attention on pulling up the little window so he could see outside. A light snowfall had begun to descend upon the airport, causing him to frown as he hoped their flight wouldn’t be delayed. Their mission was of the utmost importance after all, and being late would put them behind schedule. Sure they had eight weeks to complete the assignment, but that still didn’t mean losing a few hours was something they could afford. 

Ben sighed as he leaned back into his seat, and continued staring out the window, only to be roused from his stupor by the sound of a woman groaning. He turned his head to see that the woman from the lobby—alias: Daisy Niima—struggling to fit her suitcase into the overhead compartment. Just as quickly as he’d looked at her, he moved his gaze elsewhere, not wanting to have to deal with the problem because of course this would happen to him, of course it would. 

“Hey, asshole, mind helping me out with this?” she asked, her accented voice deeper than he’d been expecting. 

A groan left his lips, but he nodded, standing up, and moving to adjust their suitcases in the overhead compartment until they fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces. Once the job was done he gave her a nod, and she thanked him sarcastically before the two of them slid into their seats. 

After another moment, Ben looked over at the woman he’d be spending the next eight weeks with, and he cleared his throat. “I take it you’ve read the files?”

“Read and burned, as is protocol.”

“Indeed, so you know what we’re up against.”

“Figuring out if foreign billionaires are conspiring to profit of illegal nuclear weapons? A normal Tuesday,” she said, her casual tone bringing a smile to his face as the first class boarding finished, and they began to board the rest of the plane. 

He was tempted to ask her for her name, but he knew the risks that were associated with that. Knowing the true names of his team would potentially be fatal. If they were found and tortured and revealed those names, a lot more people could be hurt than just them. Names were a no go. Aliases were the only way to refer to one another safely, and even those were dangerous. “Indeed. This many weeks in Moscow, though. That’s one hell of a vacation.”

“You think Moscow is a vacation? It’s December. It’ll be freezing. Half my luggage is full of fancy coats that wouldn’t fit anywhere except for in a checked bag,” she said in response, crossing her arms in disbelief as she looked at him. 

“Oh, no, not at all, but compared to some places I’ve been? Moscow will be a breeze.”

“I hope you’re right about that.”

“Trust me, sweetheart, I’m rarely wrong.”

**_Three days later._ **

As it would turn out, Ben Solo was, in fact, on occasion, very rarely, wrong. They were three days in and already the team had spent most of the time bickering with no real leads on the people they were supposed to be finding. It was proving difficult to figure out just who was leading this weapons deal.

Moscow was proving to be an absolute hellscape and to top it all off, Ben was consistently shivering beneath many layers of clothing. He was fairly certain he’d develop hypothermia before this trip was over, and every time he looked over at the others, he got the same vibe. Nobody was happy to be here, and they all just wanted to go home. 

They attended three meetings for the company they were supposedly working for, the company that was supposedly where all of their bad guys for this go around worked. They acted like normal employees, taking notes and being extra attentive like the good little workers they were pretending to be. The others’ Russian was absolutely perfect, and sometimes Ben felt like a failure next to them—the general and the scavenger in particular—whenever he spoke up at these meetings. Because of this, he usually just lurked in the background, and said nothing. Or at least, he said very little. 

At the end of the third meeting, though, they found out why they’d been forced to bring the finest tuxedos money could buy. They’d be attending a fucking charity gala. One that took place in a high class hotel ballroom with chandeliers and waiters bringing champagne around with ball gowns and monkey suits alike. It was a congregation of everyone in the company. Everyone who would be potentially dealing their money into the selling of illegal weaponry.

It was the precise sort of event that Ben hated, and the stupid fucking ginger asshole he hated even more absolutely loved. While he didn’t know his coworker’s history, he gathered that he must have been raised in situations like this, and well accustomed to them by the way he explained the intricacies of how these things worked when they met up in his hotel room that night. 

“You do realize that in our line of work, we’ve all been to one of these before, right?” the Commander asked dryly, looking ridiculous levels of pissed off as he loosened the tie of his business suit. “We’ve all made the rounds, we’ve all waltzed with strange men and women from all walks of life— would you cut the shit and stop showing off like a pompous ass?”

In that moment, as the rest of them—Ben included—laughed like hyenas, he decided he rather liked the commander. “He’s right, we’ve got this in the bag, it’ll be a breeze,” he said, leaning back against the headboard of the bed he’d casually flopped himself on—much to The General’s chagrin— “This is simple reconnaissance. It’s a walk in the fucking park.”

“It may be, but we need to have our stories straight anyway. How long have we known each other?”

“We’ve already gone over this,” the scavenger replied, swirling around in the hotel room’s swivel chair again as a groan left her lips. “We’ve gone over it fourteen times.”

“And we’re going to go over it again until you asses get it right,” The General hissed, then he clapped his hands together. “From the top!”

_ Huh. Perhaps he was a theatre kid as well.  _ It certainly explained his flair for the dramatic. 

Ben looked over, and locked eyes with the scavenger, both their eyes rolling for a moment before they gave one another awkward smiles. He was discovering very quickly that he didn’t mind her either, in fact, he quite enjoyed her company. The scavenger was absolutely hilarious, and when they’d been partnered up for late night sleuthing the night before, he’d almost been distracted by her sense of humor. 

They’d gotten very little done that night, in the end. But Ben suspected that now that he’d gotten to know her a little better, they would make a great team from there on out. 

By the end of the night, they had a plan for the next evening, and Ben was in his own hotel room eyeballing that bastard tuxedo with disdain. The television was on in the background while he sat in bed staring at the ceiling and hoping he wouldn’t want to quit his job too badly come the end of the night. 


	2. Chapter 2

**_Twenty four hours later_ **

Ben was in his tuxedo and he hated it. The bow tie around his neck was just a pinch too tight, and the shirt felt like it was going to burst around the broad expanse of his chest. It felt like the prime recipe for a panic attack, but he forced himself to remain calm. He was Ben Solo, federal agent and all around badass, and he could do this. He’d done it before. He’d probably do it again. 

He’d just hate it more every time. 

Now he was stood in an elevator with the general and the commander waiting for the trooper and the scavenger. Their rooms were all on different floors, and every thirty seconds it seemed, they were stopping on a different one and another agent would step on board and give what he’d started to refer to as The Nod—with a little trademark symbol after the d—then the elevator resumed its ride. 

They all looked just about the same in those damned suits, and it wasn’t until the doors opened on the scavenger that Ben actually thought the night might not be so bad after all. On the tenth floor, the doors opened to reveal the scavenger—alias Daisy Niima, whose real name started with an R but she couldn’t say. She wore a shimmering, absolutely gorgeous red dress that hung on her curves from everywhere it was draped from the inch thick straps that wrapped around her shoulders and descended into a smooth sweetheart neckline. It was every stereotypical dream from all of the movies about their career, but it did the trick. No one would be questioning her motives that night, they’d all be too busy staring down her—

_ No.  _

A part of him wanted to tell her that she looked beautiful, but he chickened himself out about it at the last second and decided not to say anything instead. “Do you think this one will be as boring as the others?” he asked instead, and she laughed. 

“Quite possibly. Though I’m not sure, I heard a man at work yesterday mention dancing so it could be interesting,” she replied, then a scoff sounded from the trooper. 

“Depends on what kind of dancing,” he said, adjusting the reading glasses perched on his nose. “Is it a waltz? A boring ass waltz or a grindfest?”

They all laughed, but each of them knew the reality of the question. Despite their costuming, the party could go either way. Ben had attended many a party where he’d been in the blasted suit and still he’d wound up grinding on someone by the night’s end only to never see them again. They usually didn’t know until they showed up to the venue what sort of situation they’d be in, but an hour later, Ben was nursing a glass of champagne sitting bitterly off to the side as he watched couples--well, pairs more accurately, no one was actually romantically engaged here-- glide across the dance floor while an orchestra played classical style music he didn’t care for. 

Mentally cursing his high alcohol tolerance, Ben made sure no one was looking before he threw his head back and downed the entire glass in one go. He nearly choked on the champagne when he heard a woman’s giggle, and realized he had in fact been watched. His eyes searched desperately for the source of the laugh once he recovered, and he found it in the form of the scavenger’s parted red lips as she smiled at him, and sipped her own glass of champagne. 

“Not a fan of these parties either, are you?” she asked, lifting a coy eyebrow in his direction. 

Ben laughed, taking a step toward her as he deposited his empty glass on a nearby table, and stole another off of a waiter’s tray. “That obvious, huh?”

Her grin only grew larger as she took a sip of her glass, her hazel eyes twinkling in the light of the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. “Have you heard anything interesting yet?”

“Well, there’s something interesting I’ve heard from a former CFO’s assistant, but I’m not entirely sure it would lead anywhere,” he said, then he gestured to her. “And what about you? Have you heard anything?”

“I’ve heard something odd from a butler, but I don’t think we should be discussing it so far apart,” she told him, lowering her voice some as her expression sobered. “Care to join me in a dance?”

Ben nearly choked on another sip of his champagne, but he quickly got a hold of himself, and gave her a nod before he set his glass down, and offered her his hand. She quickly did the same, then the two of them strode out onto the dance floor. Ben wrapped one arm around her waist, and the other took her hand while one of hers rested itself on his shoulder, and she blinked in surprise at something. “What?”

“Nothing, just… your shoulders are broader than I expected,” she said with a laugh, then she cleared her throat. “Don’t look now, but do you see the man over there with the handlebar mustache and the five women drooling over him--who is most definitely going to be getting in bed with all of them tonight?”

Ben smiled down at her, then he waited five seconds, and turned his head ever so slightly to his left in the direction her eyes had flickered in. Indeed there was a man who had women in scandalous looking formal dresses giggling and smiling at his every word as he spoke animatedly in Russian. “Yeah, what’s so special about him?”

“I heard him talking earlier,” she said, then she leaned in closer to his ear, close enough that he could feel her breath ghosting over his skin. He chose to ignore the way his heart picked up a rapid pace in his chest from the action. “He said something about ‘this ending tonight’ and that usually doesn’t mean anything good, if you ask me.”

“No, not normally,” he replied, then he swallowed as she pulled back from him, but he kept her close as he continued, “Did he say anything else?”

“Just that he put the money in the safe,” she replied, then she cleared her throat. “I think someone’s paid a hitman for someone else at this party, I’m just not sure who.”

Ben nodded, then he looked around the room, where everyone important in the manufacturing business was scattered throughout. Some were engaged in waltzes like himself and the scavenger, and others were lounging about on the sidelines, but either way, all of them wore fake smiles on their faces and were possibly nursing one or more glasses of champagne. 

“Do you remember where he said the safe was?” Ben asked, then a Cheshire cat’s grin parted her red lips. 

**_Five minutes later_ **

He and Rey were bent over a gorgeous looking mahogany safe, straining to crack it despite their years of training. “You need to crank it the other way,” Rey told him, and he simply rolled his eyes. 

“I told you to keep watch. If we get caught because you were being an amateur—“

“Oh, if we get caught, it’ll be because you wouldn’t listen to me,” she muttered, but still he heard the sound of her heels clacking on the floor as she disappeared from his view. He grinned as he continued his work on the safe’s lock, listening carefully to the timbers inside as he turned the dial slowly. 

He didn’t have long, though, it would seem. Not ten seconds into this venture, Rey hauled ass away from the door and began smacking his arm. “We need to go, they’ve found us,” she said, then she corrected herself, “Well, they're going to find us. Two men headed our way.”

“Let’s get out of here, then,” he suggested, like it would ever be that simple in their line of work. 

“There’s no time!” she whispered, the sound of approaching footsteps audible just beneath that of her voice. “We need to come up with something believable and we need to do it fast.”

Ben looked around the room, searching for something—  _ anything  _ —that could be used as an escape route. He found nothing. In fact, the only other thing in the room—the only notable feature at least—aside from the safe was a pretty, velvet covered chaise lounge with golden tasseled pillows resting at its head.  _ That would have to do.  _

Without much further thought, he led her to it, and tugged her hand so that she sat down beside him once they got there. She gasped as he pulled her close, and he leaned in to whisper, “Do you trust me?”

“I probably shouldn’t but, yes,” she said, then as the footsteps were nearly upon them, Ben reached up, and casually slid one of her straps from her shoulder, then he ruffled her hair before he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

Rey’s lips were warm against his, and perhaps a little slick from the creamy texture of the lipstick she was wearing. A part of him was concerned about just how interesting that color would look on him, but the majority of his being was more worried about making this kiss look believable. The two of them barely knew each other, and sure, they got on fine, and perhaps had even been a bit flirty in some moments, but he was fairly certain they hadn’t quite reached this level of comfort with one another yet where kissing like they couldn’t control themselves was easy. 

He moved on autopilot, remembering how he’d done this with partners in mission’s past as his hands threaded themselves into her hair, tilting her head back enough for him to deepen the kiss, pressing her back into the arm of the chaise. The footsteps were still only just approaching the door, and he took the time to add a few more extra details, bringing his lips ever so briefly down onto her jaw, then he ghosted them over the skin of her neck before he returned to her lips. He could barely hold back the laugh at seeing her own lipstick stained on her neck as he pulled away from it, and the only thing that kept him from doing so was the severity of what would happen if they were caught. 

Just as Ben recaptured Rey in another kiss on the lips, the door to the small room they were in burst open, and he broke apart from her once more in feigned shock as they both turned to look at the intruders. The man that Rey had pointed out in the ballroom and another, younger woman in a black dress even more revealing than Rey’s and equally smudged plum lipstick were standing at the entrance blinking at them like they couldn’t believe they were there. 

Ben pulled away from Rey a little, and gave them a sheepish grin. “Looks like we had the same idea,” he said in Russian, then he stood up off of the chaise, and looked down at her. “I’m sorry if my wife and I invaded your space, we just needed a little privacy.”

The man was glaring at them intently with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m sure you and your wife can just go home if the urge is that strong. No need to destroy a valuable chaise.”

“Ah, we’ll be making our exit shortly then. Thank you,” Ben said kindly, then he turned around, and offered a hand to Rey. “It appears we are no longer welcome, my love, care to join me at home?”

Rey grinned at him as she, too stood up off the couch. “I would love to, darling,” she replied in the same language, then she gave the man and the woman her apologies as well, and the two of them walked off into the night. 

**_Two minutes later_ **

Ben was struggling to get her lipstick off of his face. He was standing in front of a sink in the women’s bathroom washing himself off while Rey commed the others to let them know that they’d have to head off early since they’d very nearly been caught. It was up to the trooper, the General, and the commander now. The trooper and the commander seemed eager, and the general sounded pleased to learn of their new roles in the mission while he scrubbed at his face in misery. 

“Rey, this stuff isn’t coming off.”

“Your fault, pal, you decided to kiss me, first,” she reminded him, wagging a finger at the rocky horror look he was still sporting. “Next time I’ll wear liquid lipstick. Maybe that’ll suit your fancy, won’t it?” 

“I don’t know what that means,” he replied, then he groaned as he accidentally dragged the stupid red dye onto his chin. “Somehow it sounds worse.”

“It’s better, but I don’t think you’d care for me to explain why.”

“No, thank you.”

“But you’re being a baby about this, it’s just makeup. If you’d let me help, you’d get it off a lot faster,” she said, and he was fully aware that she had a perfectly valid point, but his ye olde stubborn streak told him not to let her help. “Come on, Ben.” She reached forward again, holding out her hand expectantly for the paper towel. 

“I’m fine,” he almost whined, then he continued rubbing at the red with the towel. “It’s almost out.”

“Ben, it is anything but close to coming off. I got mine off ages ago.” She pushed herself off of the wall, and grabbed a dry paper towel then. After that she reached for the lapel of his shirt, and forced him against the nearest wall as he protested her actions. He didn’t fight her too hard, though as she pressed the paper towel into his skin, dabbing away the water and some of the red coloring of her lipstick. 

Ben’s dark brown eyes watched her curiously as she wiped at his stain. “Where’d you learn to do all of this?”

“I love wearing makeup, if we’re being honest. And I’m rather good at it. I can take off and put it on, and create an entire face with an eyeliner pen and my wit.”

“Impressive.”

“It is, thank you, now hold still, you moron.”

“I’m not a moron, I’ll have you know I’m one of the smartest men in the agency.”

“The women must be fucking geniuses then.”

Ben scoffed, but let her continue patting at his face until all of the red was cleared from his chin. Once she finished, he grumbled something about how he could’ve done it on his own anyway, and the two of them headed out back toward their hotel room, acting unnecessarily lovey with one another on their way out just in case the man who had caught them was watching. 

At least, that was what they tried to do. As they made their way back through the ballroom, Ben heard the loud sound of a wire snapping somewhere close by, and a black object whizzed inches from his skull as he ducked, forcing Rey down with him since they were joined at the hip. Above them, the chandelier was swaying wildly, and his eyes widened as he placed a hand on the small of her back, urging her forward as another wire snapped loudly, the crack deafened by the screaming of the crowd as everyone scrambled to get away from the dance floor. Glasses of champagne were tossed carelessly aside as the behemoth ceiling light flickered and went out on its way down. 

“Run!” Ben shouted, and the two of them leapt out of the way at the last second as the monstrously sized chandelier shattered into a million pieces on the floor. He felt tiny shards of glass whizz past him as they ran, and he cried out as one of them wedged itself in his calf, causing him to limp the rest of the way as he and Rey rushed to the exit. 

“Are you alright?” she asked worriedly, dropping not only the language but the accent as well, sounding as thoroughly British as she had when he’d first met her. 

“I’m fine! Just run!” he shouted, then they reached the back of the crowd, which was still screaming from the sudden chaos that had occurred in the ballroom. It felt like an eternity went by before they got out of the building and onto the driveway they’d entered from. 

From there, they checked in with the others of their team over the coms, all of them present and accounted for except for the general. Ben groaned at learning the ginger Brit was still missing, but he made a quick decision to instead rendezvous at their hotel, and to com The General once they figured out where he was. 

**_Thirty minutes later._ **

Half an hour later they were all gathered in his hotel room looking a wreck. The general still hadn’t shown up, but he’d at least commed to let them know he was on his way. That had been twenty minutes ago, and Ben’s patience was wearing thin. 

After an eternity went by, a knock sounded on the door, then Ben quickly rose, stalking over to the door before opening it angrily. “Where the hell were you?” he asked, though he was able to note the unnatural plum coloring doting his lips and neck instantly. It would seem he, too had been kissing someone on the mission. 

“I was busy, if you can’t tell,” he muttered, then he glared at Ben. “And so were you apparently, I don’t see why you’re all up in a tizzy about me doing it.”

“Because I managed to stay in contact with the team the entire time and what I did was for the good of the mission. What you did put us all at risk!”

“How do you know what I did wasn’t for the good of the mission, Ren?” the general yelled as they walked further into the hotel room, the other members of the team pointedly keeping their eyes cast downward as the two men confronted one another. 

Ben scoffed, placing his hands on his hips as he put his foot down on the ground with force to continue yelling at the general, but then pain shot up from his calf, and he cried out before bracing himself against the nearest wall.

Instantly, the others were on their feet, rushing forward to help him as they inspected his injury. Most notably the scavenger bent down to where a dark stain was slowly blooming from the back of his leg, and when he followed her gaze, he saw the tiny sliver of glass sticking out from his limb. It was then that he remembered the chandelier’s dramatic fall, the snapping of the wires, the shattering of the glass, the screaming of the people, and his own shout as a piece sliced through layers of his skin.

_ Fantastic.  _

“Ben, don’t put any weight on your leg,” she told him, then she stood up, and looked at the others. Interestingly enough, she turned her gaze on the trooper first. “Help me get him to the bed.” She turned to the other two second. “You two give us space.”

The commander obeyed the order immediately, making his way toward the front door of the hotel suite without saying another word. A scoff left the general. “Just because you’re the team medic doesn’t make you the boss-”

“I said give me  **_space!”_ ** she shouted, then the ginger haired man looked at her in alarm, put his hands up, and followed their other coworker out of the room. Once they were gone, she turned to Ben, and gestured for him to wrap an arm around her and the trooper’s shoulders. The two of them then led him over to the bed, and set him down gently at the foot. “Alright, you go, too,” she told him. “Keep an eye on the others.”

With a brief nod, he too made his exit from the room, and she once again knelt down at eye level with his injury. “Great, now that I’ve got the room cleared, let’s take a look at this thing, shall we?” 

**_Three days later…_ **

The mission seemed to hit a null after that. Without the access to the safe, they’d never figured out who was intended to be murdered that night, all they knew was that they hadn’t succeeded. No fatalities had been reported…  _ yet _ . The radio silence on their mission was absolutely killing them all, he could tell. They kept snooping around to the best of their ability, but it was to no avail.

There was no word on the weapons dealers. No word on things back home. No word on how soon Ben’s injury would enable him to do anything other than com-work. Nothing. The rising tension between him and the general certainly wasn’t helping matters either. The two reached a point where they had to avoid speaking since they were constantly at one another’s throats, and it was this exact thing that had Ben bitching to the scavenger one night while she raided a warehouse ten blocks to the south, and he was chatting with her over the coms.

“You can’t call him that, supreme leader, he’s your coworker!”

“He’s an asshole!” Ben protested, then he threw back another swig of his beer, and dug into the popcorn bag at his side as he watched her on the monitors he’d set up in the hotel room. 

“That may be true, but still, what if he hears you? The man’s got fucking bat hearing, Ben,” she warned him, then she laughed, and her hand reached up to adjust the beanie she was wearing as part of her disguise--which was that of a janitor-- before she turned a corner, and at last stumbled upon what they were looking for. “Eureka,” she whispered, not wanting to cause too much of a scene as she took a good long look at the containers of radioactive waste. “You seeing this?”

Ben nodded. “I am, and it’s all being recorded as usual.”

“I know, but is the footage clear?”

“As day.”

“Thanks, okay, but what do you think is the general’s deal? He’s always so uptight, never communicates properly…” she began to move past the waste containers, and toward a door at the far end of the corridor. “I’ve worked with him before and he’s always had a bit of a stick up his arse, but it’s never been this bad.”

“What was he like when you knew him?”   


“He ran a tight ship, but he didn’t… He didn’t flake like he is now. It’s… it’s odd. I’ve never seen him like this… But the entire time the other night, everything was just… off. But anyway, I digress. You know, after the party the other night, I thought something was odd about that woman… The one standing with the safe owner who may or may not have ordered a hitman? I think we may want to look into her later. Find out who she is.”

“I can start doing that now, if you’d like.”

“Please.”

Ben smirked even though she couldn’t see it, and then turned to another monitor, letting his eyes drift for a moment as he pulled up the footage they were still in the process of combing through from the other night. He watched that while his partner maintained conversation with him, listening to her grunt in Russian about how men were pigs as she walked past two who wolf-whistled at her. 

“Yeah, we’re dicks, I’ll give you that one,” he muttered, popping another kernel into his mouth. He chewed a few times, but the scavenger never responded to him, not even to make a snarky comment about how loud he was. “Scavenger?”

His gaze fell back on the monitor displaying her body camera, and he saw that she was peeping out from beyond a wall, watching two people in lab coats talking in hushed tones as they walked away from her toward a cooling tank. 

“What are they saying?”

“I can barely read their lips from this distance, but, supreme leader?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s definitely the woman from the party. I was right about her.”

“Shit,” Ben said, folding his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his seat. The more he looked at the image on his screen, the more clear it became that one of the people standing in Rey’s field of view was very familiar looking. It was definitely the woman from the party they’d attended the other night. She even wore the same familiar looking purple lipstick and everything, which he saw clearly as she dismissed the man she’d been walking with, and checked her watch. “What do you think she’s up to?”

Rey groaned quietly. “No clue, let me get a little bit closer.”

“Don’t get too close.”

“Ah, you already know me so well,” she said, and he could almost see the smirk on her face. “We make a great team.”

His heart started racing traitorously in his chest at that, but instead of saying too much, he nodded as if she could see him, and she wasn’t just on a screen. “We do.”

A soft chuckle entered his earpiece then, and he quickly turned the subject back to the matter at hand, focusing them on the matter of finding the operation’s game master. It was then that someone else joined the scene, a man in a suit and a fedora, wearing sunglasses indoors, allowing shadow to obscure what he could tell to be a pale face beneath his poor disguise. He was certain he’d recognize that man anywhere if he saw him without the accessories. 

As Rey drew closer, they disappeared behind a wall when she hid behind it, but their voices carried on into the mic, allowing him to hear their conversation as they talked. “... the buyer tomorrow night,” the woman was saying, her voice still as lilting and a bit annoying as he remembered. 

“The masquerade?” The man with the hat asked, his voice agonizingly familiar. His Russian was almost too perfect, though, and he didn’t know any actual Russians. “I assume you’ll want me to be there?”

Her response came with a coy, teasing tone of voice, and the slight crack of a stiletto heel against the concrete. “Well, who else would I have accompany me but the man who’s made all this possible?”

_ Interesting.  _

“Sounds fair, then, I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

“It’s a date, and don’t forget your mask.”

“I never do. I’m always wearing it,” he said, then there was the sound of a brief kiss, possibly on the cheek before his footsteps retreated, then a moment later, Ben heard the sound of the woman’s stilettos heading in Rey’s direction. 

“Scavenger, I have to advise you to get out of there,” he told her, then he looked up at one of the monitors, confirming that the woman was indeed heading in her direction from the camera he’d pulled up on the upper left monitor. 

“Working on it,” she hissed, then he looked back to the screen featuring her own camera’s live feed, and watched as she quickly turned tail, and rushed into a corridor at the precise moment the woman turned down onto hers. Ben held his breath as the two played an unknowing game of cat and mouse, with Rey being chased by the predator all the way down to the building’s exit, where she immediately ducked out of sight. 

“Okay, I’m out. We need to get an ID on the woman,” she said, panting hard enough he could practically see her chest heaving. “And the man, too. I want to know who he is.”

“Good idea, but we can worry about that when you get back. I’ll radio the commander to pick you up,” he told her, then she breathed a sigh of relief, thanked him, and so began the waiting process. 


	3. Chapter 3

**_Twenty four hours later…_ **

“And remember, the second you see anything suspicious, you com us, got it?” the trooper asked, smoothing out the lines on Ben’s suit as he finished working the wires of his com. 

“I know how this works, Trooper, I’ve been doing it for years.”

“Yeah, yeah, well, protocol is protocol, you know?” 

Ben huffed a laugh as the other man pulled away, and commenced work on the wires belonging to the commander and the Scavenger. They would be waiting for him after he was done in the getaway van they’d borrowed from some cheap rental company that hadn’t asked too many questions when they’d paid for it in bills. 

The general on the other hand was off chasing down a lead they’d found on the nuclear plant. The trooper was going to touch base with him every so often throughout the night until he returned from his findings, and compared them with whatever Ben found by the end of the night. Hopefully by then they would have a much clearer picture about what they were investigating in the country, and the mission would end sooner than its predicted eight weeks. 

With a shake of his head, Ben reached down onto the desk for the intricate mask he was set to wear that evening. True, it only covered half of his face, but there was something about it that when he’d put it on for the first time earlier—The Commander had apparently bought it for him while he was out attending a meeting for the company they were pretending to be a part of— made him feel like he couldn’t recognize himself. 

Clearing his throat, he slipped the mask on, tying the strings tightly beneath the black curls of his hair that Rey had been so kind as to style earlier, then he looked at his reflection again, and smirked. It wasn’t half bad a look on him, the black mask with the silver-chrome edges. It made him look almost a bit menacing, like he could incite fear in anyone he looked upon. Enemies tended to panic in fear, they tended to show weakness, to draw themselves out by a series of rookie mistakes. Whoever the couple he would be chasing tonight was, he could guarantee their scheme, or at least their part in it, would be over by the time it finished. 

This mission was ending soon, one way or another. He was absolutely certain of it. 

Once the mask was on, Ben turned to find himself face to face with Rey, who was grinning at him broadly as she looked him up and down. “Well, look at you, Phantom,” she said, then she walked around, and he could feel her eyes taking him up and down, inspecting every inch of the outfit he’d been conned into wearing for this “masquerade,” the man and woman were supposedly meeting one another at to discuss how the business would proceed from there. “You sure you’re feeling up for a party tonight?”

Ben nodded. “I am, if I weren’t, I would’ve gone home already,” he assured her, placing his hand briefly on her shoulder before he turned to the mirror, and began to adjust the tie around his neck so he would be able to do something other than think about touching her. She stayed quiet for a moment, and he sighed slowly as his hands found their place at his sides again. “Scavenger, I know you’re concerned about my injury, but you don’t have to be.”

“I want to be,” she promised him, then she sighed. “Look, I patched you up once, just don’t make me do it again. Understand?”

Ben barely bit back a sarcastic retort as he gave her a nod. “Yeah, I know, you’re just looking out for me,” he said, then he crossed his arms over his chest. “But you really don’t have to worry, I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t look convinced in the slightest, but she still gave him a nod as she backed away, and she and the commander gathered their things for the night. 

**_One hour later_ **

The party was in full swing as Ben watched from the side of the room. Like the party from several nights before, this one contained waiters, champagne, and much to his chagrin, chandeliers. They still hadn’t figured out who the target of that particular attack was, much to his disappointment. He hoped they might by the end of their investigation, or else they’d have a loose end and this particular trip would become much longer than anticipated. 

This one was a bit more intimate--but still a bit club-like-- though, and if the little card he’d been handed as his invitation by Poe had been anything to go by, it was a birthday celebration of some billionaire. Apparently he might just have been the man who was funding the entire nuclear deal, hoping to profit from dealing with something that could end the lives of millions. It was the highest order of having blood on one’s hands, and Ben absolutely loathed it. 

He was fairly certain his scowl was showing even behind his mask as he watched over the party from an upper deck that looked like something off the Titanic by how luxurious and old fashioned it was. The wood railing in front of him almost shone in the light of the chandelier as he looked out onto the sea of guests below, making him feel like he was merely an observer rather than an actual participant. To be fair, though, he was exactly that for all intents and purposes. 

It didn’t take him long to spot the woman in the crowd of people, dancing like her life depended on it against a man that Ben was fairly certain was not the pale stranger he had seen earlier if his darker skin tone was anything to go by. A part of him wondered what the stranger would think about that, but a larger part didn’t give a single fuck, and just wanted to go back to bed. His leg was starting to cramp a little bit where he’d been struck by the chandelier debris a week earlier, and he didn’t want to stay in there much longer. 

“How’s it going out there?” he heard the commander’s teasing voice ask, then he rolled his eyes as he braced himself firmly against the railing, watching for signs of the other enemy. 

“It’s going, I’ve found her, I just need to find the man she was with earlier,” he said, then he stiffened as he watched an intimidating figure wearing a mask not terribly unlike his own-- only it covered all of his face rather than just a portion of it, and his was lined with red and gold rather than chrome and black. “Now I’ve found him, I’m going to go dark for a minute, I don’t want to lose him.”

“Okay, we’ll be listening,” the commander replied, then he swallowed audibly. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

With that, Ben watched the figure approaching the woman, then he pressed a hand rather forcefully onto her arm, causing alarm bells to go off in her head as what little he could see of her face turned into an expression of terror.  _ That was never a good sign. _

Ben’s gaze followed them as the man suddenly led her out of the dance floor, and off to the side, disappearing behind the curtains that lined the dance floor. He didn’t hesitate to move, rushing down the nearest staircase and into the throngs of people as quickly as his feet would carry him. Something was going on between those two, and he was bound and determined to figure out who it was.

He pushed through the curtain they’d gone through, and found himself staring down a large corridor, adorned with maroon drapery all along its dimly lit walls. There was an energy to it, though he couldn’t place it as he began to wander down it, keeping his hand only inches away from the concealed gun he carried in his pocket at all times as he crept along the edges of the wall to his right. 

Their voices carried out from behind a nearby room that was open without a door, Ben quickly pulled off to the side, and half-concealed himself behind one of the maroon draperies as he listened in on the conversation. 

“... And now thanks to your… _ transgressions,  _ last week, the buyer is no longer interested in what we’re selling!” the man’s voice, that familiar, unplacable, perfect Russian filling his ears once more.

“It is not my fault you couldn’t keep your lackeys from snooping! You were supposed to be watching them, that night!” the woman hissed at him, and Ben’s eyes widened as he took in the meaning. Whoever this was, they knew about him and the scavenger. The surprise he’d seen in her eyes the night he’d climbed onto her on a chaise lounge hadn’t been from finding people there, but from finding  _ them  _ there. 

“Ah, Bazine, I think you’ll find that was you,” he said, and Ben made sure to commit that name to memory just on the off chance the mic they’d wired him with wasn’t picking it up. “You were supposed to be watching him, not running off and having affairs with our enemies.”

“But if I recall correctly, you’re the one who’s in much closer with our enemies, aren’t you?”

“You know why I’m doing that. I can’t have them getting too close to this.”

“Armitage, it’s just pulling them closer, you’re making things worse!”

_ Who the hell was Armitage? _ Another name to store for later, apparently. 

Ben stared at the velvet of the curtain ahead of him, then his breathing shuddered in his chest as a bunch of unrealized chains started to unlatch in his brain. “Oh, and you’re making them so much better? You were caught last night by my colleagues.  _ We _ were caught. I was almost made… Listen it doesn’t matter now, all I need to do is get out there and convince my buyer ‘m not just here to waste his time.”

“I? Darling, I’m afraid you and I are a we,” the woman, Bazine protested. 

A dry chuckle ensued. “I’m afraid we are, in fact, an I,” Armitage replied, then there was the tiny scraping sound of steel on steel, and the distinct gasp of someone who could only be getting stabbed. This was immediately followed by a body falling to the floor, and the man’s groan of sustain as his feet stepped over her. “It’s a pity, really. You were quite an excellent kisser,” he said, then Ben retreated behind the curtain fully as the mysterious Armitage walked out of the room. 

He held his breath as the man walked past him, praying that the man shaped outline behind the curtain hadn’t been noticed. It wasn’t until Armitage was completely gone that he dared to move out from behind the curtain, and headed into the room where he’d left Bazine. Maybe he’d be able to stop the inevitable, maybe he could save this woman’s life…

Bazine was most definitely dead though when he got in there. Her eyes were shut, and a small pool of crimson was slowly spreading out from the wound at her side. Either the man who’d stabbed her didn’t care about getting caught, or he had someone working on his side that would definitely clean this up later. Neither of those were good options, but both of them meant he had to track him down. Just what the hell had she meant by him betraying them?

He rushed back out into the hallway, catching sight of the man in the mask just as he was approaching the curtains. “Hey!” he shouted rather stupidly, knowing it was probably better for him to not yell at his target, but the man was a traitor and he’d just killed someone. Ben wasn’t thinking clearly and he knew it. 

The stranger stopped, then he turned around, and Ben caught a better glimpse of the man’s white and gold mask, revealing just the barest hint of a pale colored eye beneath it. Another faint, dry laugh left him, then he turned and ran out of the corridor, and suddenly everything that had gone down in the room behind him made sense. 

Ben froze as he watched the man in the mask running away from him, recognizing the tuft of ginger hair poking out from behind the top of his hood. The man wasn’t just an ordinary killer at all, but he was a liar, a thief, a two timing son of a bitch. It was the general. 

The realization held him on the spot for about two more seconds, then he sprang into action. Ben made his way smoothly, casually through the crowd, tapping shoulders and muttering polite “excuse me,”s as he walked out of the party. His pace quickened as he reached the exit Hux had taken, not wanting to let his target escape so quickly. 

He burst into the cool night air onto a cobblestone alley, the sounds of the masquerade within drowned out by the noise of the machinery powering the building, the street rendered difficult to see in the fog produced by the cool, humid night air. Hux would be a needle in a horribly difficult haystack for Ben to find, and he would have to find him soon. He needed to berate him for his betrayal, wound him for the ill he’d caused to the other members of their team. 

If he didn’t watch himself, though, he was fairly certain he was angry enough to kill him. His leg was still hurting from the previous week’s injury on top of that, and running away from the authorities after firing rounds into Hux’s dead body would certainly be made difficult, even with the Scavenger in his ear to direct him where to go. 

“Ben? Ben where have you gone? I’ve lost visual!” she was shouting in his ear. He ignored her for a few seconds as he made his way down the street, distant footsteps making themselves known as they came toward him. He quickly pressed himself against the nearest wall, using a nearby column and the fog to disguise his location to whoever was approaching him. 

“The traitor, scavenger, I’m following him,” he whispered, reaching for the gun he kept holstered in the waistband of his pants. 

The scavenger made a flabbergasted sound in his ears. “What? What do you mean, ‘traitor?’”

“It’s the general, he’s the agent, sweetheart, a double agent,” he told her, then he cocked the gun, and held it closely to the side of his head as he prepared to walk out into the alley. “He’s the one who tried to kill us.”

“What?”

“Think about it. That woman at the party was wearing dark purple lipstick that was so heavily smudged I almost didn’t see it. The general came back to the hotel with that exact same color plastered on his face. It was him, Rey, he did it,” he told her, the disbelief slowly settling into reality. “He tried to kill u—“

**_BANG!_ **

A bullet whizzed by his head, lodging itself in the wall right behind him, ceasing whatever he was about to say to Rey, who was yelling in his ear piece for him to tell her what was happening. He’d have to worry about that later. Right now it was life, death, and the creature staring at him through layers of fog which he could not see. 

Ben rushed forward, his gun held firmly ahead of him as he searched around for wherever Hux had shot at him from. “Show your face you coward!” he cried, then when he only received silence in response, he practically growled as he yelled, “Armitage! You son of a bitch, get out here!”

There was a slow clapping sound from behind him, and Ben quickly turned around to see his adversary approaching him with his gun still held firmly in his hand. “Well done, Ren. I had so hoped you’d be the one to figure it out,” he said, then he stopped about ten feet from Ben, the two men staring one another down as the seconds passed. 

“Why? Why did you do this? Was it money? Greed? Did someone put you up to it?” 

Hux frowned for a moment longer, then he sighed, and switched to Russian. “Well, actually you could say it was loyalty,” he admitted, and the perfection of his accent was far too real to be fake. 

Ben resisted the urge to step back in shock. “You’re from here.”

“No shit? Of course I am, but I’m not here to chat, I need to kill you. No, not just you, the whole fucking team,” he told him, then he adjusted his grip on the gun. “I can’t have you reporting me to home base, and I know you’ve already told the Scavenger… you know her real name’s Rey, right? Rey Johnson. Born to drug addicted parents and raised in London’s foster care system.”

“How did you know that?”

“I know everything about all of you, Ben, I looked into this shit. The CIA’s files are all too easy to hack. It’s a shame, really, you’re all decent people,” he said, then he shrugged. “I truly hate that I have to kill you, but if I want to get my way…”

Ben didn’t even let him finish speaking. It was a kill or be killed moment, and he could sense that if he waited any longer, Hux would pull the trigger on him. Taking in a quick breath, he braved himself for his weapon’s kickback, and fired the weapon with another loud  **_BANG!_ **

Red blossomed on the white fabric over Hux’s chest, and he staggered backwards as he looked up at Ben in shock, but he still hadn’t quite been rendered weak enough to fall. As Ben squeezed the trigger again to fire another bullet, so did his opponent, and two, horribly loud bangs echoed off the walls of the alley as one landed in the head of the ginger double agent, and the other… where was the other?

Ben looked around for it stupidly, searching in vain for something that moved too quickly for him to see. As he turned, though, he cried out from the pain that spread forth from his gut, and he looked down to see that his own white shirt was stained pure crimson, his blood pouring out of the gaping hole in his front caused by Armitage’s final act of terror. 

It took him probably a second, but it felt like an eternity as he realized he’d been shot. He’d been shot and he was now bleeding out, and worse than that, he was alone. 

No, he wasn’t, he realized as he began to walk away from the body of his dead coworker—the  _ traitor— _ he had the voice screaming in his ear asking him to tell her he was okay. It was her, the woman, the scavenger, alias Daisy Niima, real name Rey Johnson. The coworker he was most fond of. “I’ve…”

“Ben? Ben what’s going on? What’s happened? The general’s coms went down!” She cried, a desperation growing in her voice as he heard her shuffling around in the hotel room, likely running off to find him and rescue him from his own injuries. “Ben!” 

He was walking slowly, too slowly, but he was far too weak to run. Ben cried out as a fresh, sharp, shock of pain ripples through his body, and finally the words to describe what happened came to him as he found another wall to lean against. “Rey,” he breathed, then he pressed his hand against his wound, remembering vaguely that he needed to keep pressure on such a thing. “Rey, I’ve been shot, he got me…” he was panting hard now, a sheen of sweat developing on his face as he groaned against the onslaught of agony shooting up from his gut. “Hux… Hux is dead.”

“Oh my god,” she breathed, and he could hear the elevator of their hotel dinging in the background. “Okay, get to the nearest street, I’m coming to get you…”

Ben let out a high pitched cry as he pushed himself off of the wall. “I’ll try,” he told her.

“Just hold on, Ben, okay? Can you do that for me?” 

“I… don’t… know…” he said faintly as he continued to walk, but he tried his hardest. He listened to that faint little voice in his head that told him to hang on until she got there, and it kept him going until the blackspots started dotting his vision, and he eventually collapsed on the street in the light of Rey’s headlights. The sound of her voice was the last thing he heard before he hit the ground. 

**_Eighteen Hours Later…_ **

Ben woke up slowly in the hotel room, his head was groggy, and the room was spinning when he tried to open his eyes. Everything hurt. Everything was moving too quickly. The dim lights were too bright. Far too bright. A voice called out to him, pulling him closer to consciousness, but he wasn’t ready yet. It wasn’t time. 

He let his eyes drift shut again, and slept on for a little while longer until he was ready to wake up again. 

**_Two more hours later_ **

The pain was still gnawing at him when he finally woke up for good. Nothing hurt him too much to open his eyes anymore, and he opened them to see that he was tucked into the hotel bed. The sheets had been pulled up to his waist, and they felt cool against his skin, making him realize that the only fabric currently on his upper half was that and the gauze that was stained red from his bullet wound. 

A pressure shifted on his lower thigh, and his gaze shifted down to see the scavengers sleeping face buried in the crook of her arm as she rested on the firm cushion of his legs. One of her hands was sprawled over him protectively, as if she’d fallen asleep standing guard while he recovered from whatever the team’s doctor had done to him. 

It hit him then that somehow he was alive. He’d survived what should have killed him, and it was all thanks to her. A small smile grew on his face as he stared down at her, more grateful than ever to his teammate— _ Rey,  _ he remembered her name was—for making sure he was still alive. 

He tried to say her name, but his voice came out sore and raspy, and barely even audible to his own ears. On top of that, the movement of his chest as he spoke made the wound to his side ache, and instead, a groan came out of his lips as he leaned his head back against the pillow, allowing the pain to flood him once more. 

At this, a pair of hazel eyes appeared from behind her arms, and she was rushing forward in her swivel chair to inspect him, hands reaching out urgently for his face. Ben laughed softly as she began to urgently ask him things. “How are you feeling?” she asked him first, followed quickly by, “And what the hell were you  _ thinking _ ? You could have died!”

“I couldn’t let him get away… Rey, he said he was going to kill all of you.” He reached up, weakly, and brushed a piece of her hair out of her face. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

She froze at the sound of her real name, and Ben flinched slightly at his mistake. They really needed to not disclose those names. They needed more than anything to keep their identities secret, but he supposed that if the mission had failed or if it was over… what exactly had happened since he’d last been in commission? 

Rey slowly relaxed in front of him, then she sighed. “Don’t worry, I know yours, too. I heard the general over the coms,” she told him, and he felt the slight pressure in his chest from his swelling anxiety ease. “Ben, huh?”

“What kind of a name is Rey?”

“At least it’s not boring.”

A scoff left his lips, but they were both giggling after the exchange until Ben winced at the pain in his side from the laughter, and it quickly came to a halt. “What happened last night?”

“Well, to be frank, a lot happened, but the mission came to an end. Turns out Bazine and Hux were the orchestrators of it. Another group may try the same thing soon, but we’ve cut the head off of this particular snake… We’ve done our part for now,” she said, then she shook her head. “I’ll know more later once the others get back, but… Ben the entire operation came down last night because of your discovery. When they discovered her was dead, his lackeys panicked. They made a bunch of rookie mistakes that got them discovered, and last I heard the trooper and the commander had kicked their asses.”

Ben leaned his head back, feeling relief flood his veins. “That’s wonderful, because this hurts.”

“I bet, I was up for hours fixing you,” she said, then she rested a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for not dying on me.”

He gave her a small smile, reaching up weakly with his hand to rest it on top of hers. “No, thank you for saving my life.”

She grinned, then a soft little sigh left her lips. “We head back home tomorrow. They wanted to give you a little time to rest before they pulled us out again. Thanks to the revealed identities, they’re going to send all four of us off grid for a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“About six weeks,” she said, then she laughed. “They want me to spend six weeks in fucking America. I’ll die.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You have a Cheeto in the White House.”

“Okay it has a lot of problems,” he said, then he took a deep breath, working up the courage to say what he wanted to say next. “But it has one, crucial benefit.”

Raising an eyebrow, Rey let go of his shoulder, and propped her head up on her hands, her elbows resting on the mattress at his bedside as she asked, “What is this benefit, then?”

“Well, it’s not much, but… I can ask you to have dinner with me, which… might turn out to be one hell of a benefit, don’t you think?”

Rey blinked at him a few times as if she were surprised, then as he watched, the corners of her mouth turned upward into a hint of a smile. His heart began to race in his chest as she slowly pushed herself off of the chair, then she sat down on the bed next to him, and reached up to caress his cheek. “I think that sounds like my new favorite thing about America,” she said, giving him the world’s fastest blink-and-you’ll-miss-it wink before she leaned forward, and gently pressed her lips to his. 

Ben relaxed into the kiss, returning it with what little energy he had to give her as one of his arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closely to him. This kiss was soft and gentle, nothing like the one they’d shared on the chaise lounge the week before, which had been all frenzied and rushed, and he hadn’t been able to enjoy it thoroughly when it had been happening since he’d been far too busy making sure they didn’t get busted to even bother trying. 

But this one? This one was slow, easy, and he found that even with the injury spiking pain from his side, he was able to give her his full attention as he kissed her. Suddenly, he found himself grateful for this trip, and even to Hux a little since he’d managed to get him out of not only six weeks of work, but he’d gotten him the chance to explore the chemistry between himself and Rey, depending on where in America they both wound up. He was pretty sure they could work something out, even if they had to hide in a log cabin in the middle of Wyoming. 

She pulled away from him then, and smiled as she sat up straighter. “So I hope you like Italian food?” she asked, then Ben laughed again and gave her a nod. 

“Yeah, that sounds perfect, assuming pizza counts as Italian food?”

“Oh, it definitely does,” she replied, then she reached down, and took his hand into hers. “It’s a date?”

Ben nodded. “It’s a date,” he replied, then she leaned down and kissed him again, and he returned this one a little more passionately as he reveled in all of the things that delighted him. 

They had successfully stopped the bad guys from dealing nuclear weapons, and the members of his team who weren’t traitors were safe, sound, and alive, and he was most definitely kissing one of them. He didn’t want to stop anytime soon either, no, Ben was perfectly content after all of the shit he’d been through on that mission to just lie there in bed with her all day, and never leave. After all, he had a whole day he was supposed to spend recovering before they went on that flight. Aside from perhaps more complicated things that involved too much movement… well...

The mission was over now, they weren’t just spies anymore, they could be people again, and as people… Anything could happen. 

 


End file.
